Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

ashsimmo wrote:

 

Thanks for the reply, I have downloaded all my old games and apps from my old iPod touch but the problem is how do I know which one is causing the problems? I'm not sure whether it was 5.0.1 out of the box or 5.0. When I bought the phone they helped me set it up and when I got back home I immediately synced it with iTunes and chose ''set up as new phone'' I could try and do the reset from phone option but exactly what settings will I lose? (I need to know so I can put all the setting back again straight away. Thanks again for the reply.

It will run through the wizard as if new asking about some settings (location wifi etc) The phone settings get reset  but the ones that I recall needing personal attention are wifi, email signature, and who you are to Siri. Otherwise  pretty good to go. Any specific settings you turned off  like iAds and time zone etc will need to be fix like you want.

As for what apps, that's the $10,000 question. Only way to know is restore to factory and see if phone behaves. If so add back an app or two at a time and monitor how it performs.  Otherwise maybe turn off location and notification for ALL the old apps and see if that helps. Since those two features are new to iOS 5 older apps may not behave properly trying to use it.

I think if I were you, and i HAD to have all those apps (bet you dont really use 1/2 of them ) I would do as mentioned  and reset and calibrate battery, and turn off notify and loc for those apps, and not run any of the older apps for a day or so after the reset and calibrate and see how it goes. I mean if the apps are installed but never loaded or used I would hope they would not effect the phone. That should at least be a start and easier than a full restore with no apps but default ones. Good luck with it. The 4s does run great for the majority of users (not ones in forums looking for fixes to issues) so it appears certain circumstances cause the poor battery life and figuring our what those are are the tough part.

I had been having serious problems with my 4S battery. I was on my second handset and had all but given up hope. I was on to someone from apple and they sujjested trying the following and it worked. I dont know if it will work for anyone else but I thought I'de pass it on just incase. It's a bit of a pain sorting out all your apps and folders again but worth it.

This is for windows 7 users.

First you need to show hidden file and folders if they are hidden.

Control Panel - tools - folder options - view - show hidden files.

Then

C:/Users/(Username)/app data/roaming/apple computer/itunes/iphone software updates.

You need to go in and delete this file.

Then restore your iphone without backing it up from a previous backup.

Restore to new phone and it will automatically update to the latest build 5.0.1(9A406).

This new update to this build is not being pushed to phones when you update normally so this is why you need to do it manually.

My battery has at least doubled in lifespan since.

Hope this helps!

Ok thanks for explaining what it does and I guess your right about the apps, I don't use them all and to be honest I would rather have a phone that lasts as long as it says on the box then have all these apps and not a very good battery life at all. I have thought about doing a complete restore from iTunes but is that enough to clear anything malicious? I've heard people talk about a 'clean restore', now is that the same as doing it from iTunes or is it something different? I really love my iPhone 4S! Its stylish and amazing but turning off so many features kind of puts it at a downfall, I mean there is a reason its called a 'smartphone', no? Anyhow, I'm going to Settings > General > Reset > Reset all settings (please reply and tell me if this is the one to chose before I mess up my iphone lol) Thanks for the reply.

That sounds mighty interesting but I dont have the folder 'iphone software updates' and my version is 5.0.1 (9A405) could this be the reason why my battery is so poor? Do I not have the proper updated version or something?

Hello sbailey,

will I note any difference after resetting my settings but before battery drains?

I just did the reset, but still have 70% of battery left, so i would like to know what to expect.

Thanks

The new iOS 5.0.1 9A406 will automatically come down on 4s  if you press the restore option in iTunes. I have seen several replies from folks doint the 406 update even though didnt have sim card issues and it fixed their battery. 

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148

luis144 wrote:

 

Hello sbailey,

 

will I note any difference after resetting my settings but before battery drains?

 

I just did the reset, but still have 70% of battery left, so i would like to know what to expect.

 

Thanks

You may actually see some difference due to corrupt network settings being a cause of drain but the battery calibration is a big part of this process. What happens is for example the software may get to 1% and run for a while because the battery may have energy left or software may report 5% left and the phone dies all of a sudden.  So that process syncs the two. So basically you are particially done just let it drain all the way now until you see the spinning star and the phone shuts itself off, then recharge back to 100% undisturbed. Hope it helps!

I'm restoring my iphone to 9A406 and will see what happens. Fingers and toes are crossed.

ashsimmo wrote:

 

Ok thanks for explaining what it does and I guess your right about the apps, I don't use them all and to be honest I would rather have a phone that lasts as long as it says on the box then have all these apps and not a very good battery life at all. I have thought about doing a complete restore from iTunes but is that enough to clear anything malicious? I've heard people talk about a 'clean restore', now is that the same as doing it from iTunes or is it something different? I really love my iPhone 4S! Its stylish and amazing but turning off so many features kind of puts it at a downfall, I mean there is a reason its called a 'smartphone', no? Anyhow, I'm going to Settings > General > Reset > Reset all settings (please reply and tell me if this is the one to chose before I mess up my iphone lol) Thanks for the reply.

Yes that is the one.  follow exactly as below. I would certainly make sure you have a backup just to be safe. Not sure if you backup to iTunes or iCloud but either is fine.  If that does not help  (give it a day to see) I would do the restore from iTunes which will dump all apps and reset to factory skipping the restore. Also for 4s users  the iTunes restore option will update to 5.0.1 (9A406 build) which a lot of folks have indicates has also helped their battery life .

[credit to Davidch for this fix]

For anyone new to the thread be sure to go through these steps to address the battery after updating to iOS 5.0.1:

1. Reset all settings (settings app-> general-> reset)

2 a. Go through initial setup steps (lang, wifi, siri, enable location, etc) and choose setup as new phone (don't worry your apps, data, contacts, mail will still be there). Do NOT restore from iCloud or iTunes (It can copy back corrupt settings)

2 b. If you do not get the complete new setup screen with language setup and setup as new phone or restore from iTune/iCloud backup, be sure to go back to #1 and reset all settings again (it should happen the second time)

3. Turn off system location services timezone and iAd (settings -> location services -> system services)

4. Fully discharge battery (until you get the spinning wheel and it shuts off)

5. Fully recharge battery (overnight if possible)

So is this 9A406 supposed to be better than 9A405? If I restored to 9A406 would it fix the battery?

Possibly. I've been doing a bit of research myself whilst also listening to some helpful folks on here (ie sbailey4) that restoring to the 9A406 may possibly help the battery issues too. It seems its meant to help 'sim card' issues but there have been reports of peoples batterys getting better! ****, I'm giving it ago to see, I can't stand my battery life at the moment. I'm restoring now as I speak Just got to put all my songs and apps back on now! Hope I helped.

Sylar2011 wrote:

 

So is this 9A406 supposed to be better than 9A405? If I restored to 9A406 would it fix the battery?

Technically it was released to resolve SIMM card issues a few users were experiencing on certain carriers. Apple is not pushing it automatically because unless you had simm card issues you dont need this. But there has been a lot of posts from people doing it and it rsolved their battery. Maybe simm card or modem firmware was causing battery issues who knows.  No where did Apple state it would address battery issues.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148

ashsimmo wrote:

 

Possibly. I've been doing a bit of research myself whilst also listening to some helpful folks on here (ie sbailey4) that restoring to the 9A406 may possibly help the battery issues too. It seems its meant to help 'sim card' issues but there have been reports of peoples batterys getting better! ****, I'm giving it ago to see, I can't stand my battery life at the moment. I'm restoring now as I speak Just got to put all my songs and apps back on now! Hope I helped.

Hopefully you see this before you restore but I would sync music either with Tunes or now you can download from iCloud direct to your device.  I would not restore your backup. If there is software corruption you will be putting it back on  if you restore.

Ok cool let us know how it goes!

I restored from iTunes and not from a backup so hopefully all is well! I chose the option of 'Setting as new phone' option again. Another thing I didn't get when I first synced my iPhone was a message saying 'Congratulations Your iPhone Is Now Successfully Unlocked!' That sounds good!  I set everything back right super quick when it finished restoring and sorted all my apps to how I like them etc. I checked Settings > General > About and scrolled down to Version to check all went well and it is on 9A406. Heres to a (hopefully) awesome iPhone 4S with no battery issues. Thanks for all the help today Sir!!